


Grazing the Point of a Blade

by Eerie_Iris



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket (Anime 2001), Fruits Basket (Anime 2019)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Fluff, Cannon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:20:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29862165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eerie_Iris/pseuds/Eerie_Iris
Summary: Instead of meeting Tohru during the summer trip to the beach, Akito pulls you away from the Sohmas. Somehow he managed to underestimate Tohru's importance to the Sohmas' and overestimate your control over them.
Relationships: Sohma Akito & Reader, Sohma Akito/Original Character(s), Sohma Akito/Reader, Sohma Akito/You





	Grazing the Point of a Blade

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers!! If you haven't read the manga or watched the anime be warned!!! 
> 
> (Also I realize Akito is a woman, but I wrote this after watching the 2001 Anime, so oopsies.)

At this point you were beyond upset. You were absolutely pissed. Over the past year you had become close with a lot of the Sohmas; they were practically your family at this point. The person who sat before you smiled, but his eyes were so cold you were convinced they could freeze over hell. You hoped your expression mirrored his. Akito Sohma was quite possibly the worst person you had ever met. He held far too much power and commanded a level of respect he by no means deserved. Undeniably, he was a jealous, selfish, and spiteful person. At this point you were pretty sure he was a narcissist too. Yet, you bit your tongue. You couldn’t risk angering him for the safety of your friends, but good god did you want to throttle him on the spot. He hadn’t even opened his weaselly little mouth and you were already annoyed.

“I was told you wanted to officially meet me,” you stated not letting your festering hatred seep into your tone. You held your hands in front of you in mock politeness.

“I didn’t _want_ to meet you, but I don’t like others messing with my things. You must be a pathetic girl to come when a stranger beckons, though I suppose it would be hard to refuse me,” he said. His tone wasn’t particularly rude, but he was certainly mocking you. You were going to fucking punch him. It would be worth it. It would _totally_ be worth it. With a deep breath you steadied yourself once more, trying not to become too aggravated as he continued to go and on and _on_.

“I did want to see what the others liked about you. Though, that’s proving rather difficult. I don’t see why they prefer to spend their time with you,” he said. On its own, the way he said such awful things with a steady voice was annoying. But to think he had the gall to expect the other Sohmas to care about him when had been the main source of their trauma and pain all these years was unacceptable. _Perhaps they might like him a bit more if he wasn’t such an abusive person._ You smiled and sat down across from him at the little wooden table he had in his room.

“Jealousy is not necessary, the other Sohmas still like you fine,” you assured him, keeping your steadily building rage in check.

“That is not something _you_ need to tell _me_.” He took a sip of the tea sitting on the table. It looked pretty good actually. He was probably one of the only people besides you that you’d seen put cream in his tea. Akito glared at you under the guise of a smile. You knew what this whole meeting was supposed to be; a threat. In all honesty, it would’ve been wiser for him to pick Tohru. Perhaps he thought her too stupid to pose a threat. You could’ve laughed at that notion alone. Tohru was far more dangerous to his position than you could ever hope to be, half the family would die for her on a whim as it already stood. With a sly smirk you didn’t quite manage to suppress, the tension in the room rose higher. Something you didn’t think was possible beforehand.

“What do you find so amusing?” he asked. This was the first time you heard danger in someone’s tone. You didn’t know how else to explain it. It wasn’t merely a threat; it was a promise of destruction. So, you chose your next words carefully.

“You drink your tea the right way, with cream I mean,” you explained, only telling the half-truth. Akito froze for a moment and just looked at you blankly. Seemed like he had been expecting literally anything but that. You had never expected the head of the Sohma household, the walking terror himself, to look so dumbfounded. You couldn’t help but let a little laugh slip and a smile graze your face, the first genuine smile you’d had all day. Not the one you used to reassure the others you’d be fine. Or the hostile challenge you’d been sharing with Akito for the past twenty minutes. He looked at you like you’d lost you mind and perhaps you had.

“Sorry! You looked a little surprised there, though that comment was totally out of left field. I was just thinking about it. I just don’t know very many people that drink tea with milk,” you explained, somewhat miraculously feeling the tension drain from the room.

“You should find better friends,” he said taking another sip of his tea. _At least I have them_. You once again bit your tongue and smiled back seizing the opportunity.

“Perhaps I may find them,” you hinted locking eyes with him. You absolutely didn’t want anything to do with him but making him like you would only be to your advantage. He looked taken aback but before he could respond an oh-too-familiar redhead burst through the door actively scaring the shit out of you.

“AKITO! YOU BASTARD!” Kyo shouted barging into the room. You swore quietly to yourself. _Thanks Kyo, way to escalate the situation when I_ finally _had it under control!_

“I didn’t ask to speak to you.” Akito’s words were cold and dismissive like he wasn’t even speaking to a human being. I guess to him, in a way he wasn’t. With a snarl Kyo opened his mouth again and you cleared your throat, actively distracting him. Kyo stared at you wide-eyed.

“THE HELL?! What’re you doin’ here?!” He demanded turning to you. Before you had a chance to answer Akito responded.

“Unlike you, she was invited,” he sneered. There was a clear undertone to his words that made you want to slap him. He was trying to reaffirm and restate that Kyo wasn’t wanted and didn’t belong in the family. With a heavy sigh you spoke for the first time since Kyo walked in.

“Kyo, I’m okay. I chose to come, I wasn’t forced. _Go_ ,” you explained and Kyo hesitantly nodded and left. You had a feeling he’d be back later though.

“What a worthless cat! At least no one in this family will have to deal with him for much longer,” Akito muttered. With a start you spoke before even considering your words.

“What exactly do you mean by that?” you questioned internally wincing at your tone. You could tell that for a moment he debated whether or not to answer you because of it. God he was a priss. He didn’t really acknowledge you as you spoke, it was more of a flippant reply than an actual response to what you had said.

“We have a bet,” he stated as if it were the most obvious. You stayed silent for a moment, not prodding him and assuming he would continue. Akito did like to listen to the sound of himself talk after all. Finally, he spoke again seeming to thoroughly enjoy having control of the conversation once more.

“If he can’t beat Yuki before the end of the year, he’s agreed to live in isolation for the rest of his sorry existence,” Akito explained with a smile. If you hadn’t such a grasp on your emotions the nausea you felt in the pit of your stomach would have clearly shown on your face. Luckily, all that managed to peek through was a slight grimace at his words. Then, you thought upon it for a moment and realized something essential. Kyo _had_ already won against Yuki. In a moment of pure joy, you let a large grin spread across your face.

“What?” Akito snapped. You merely smiled and shook your head. With only a slight hesitancy you reached down and took a long drawn out sip from the teacup in front of you, mirroring his earlier behavior. Clearly, he was getting impatient with you, but you took your time setting the cup back down gently.

“He’s already won,” you stated with such a confidence that you even surprised yourself. In his shock, Akito let his mask slip for a mere moment and a scowl slipped onto his visage. Watching him lose his cool was teetering on the edge between exhilarating and utterly terrifying. On one hand, you enjoyed watching him lose absolute control of the situation. Yet, on the other you worried what he would do. Would he lash out at you? Or worse, one of the other Sohmas?

“What?” he asked. His polite tone sounded so fake that you had to stop yourself from flinching at the malice behind his words. You nodded slowly trying to keep the smugness from your expression as you locked eyes with him. Akito, though frail, was truly dangerous when angry. He seemed to believe in your genuineness at least slightly, for he quickly regained composure.

“Explain,” he ordered. This time you didn’t take your time, taking advantage of his momentary patience.

“Well, the terms of the bet were that Kyo simply had to win against Yuki, correct? I don’t want to unintentionally deceive you,” you said as politely as you could manage. With a partial sneer on his face, Akito nodded.

“Kyo did win against Yuki, he won Tohru’s heart,” you explained. You had expected him to have a bad reaction, but you still weren’t quite prepared for it. Within an instant he went from being a calm festering sea to a tempest. What you could only describe as a guttural snarl escaped his mouth and he practically threw the table across the room. Were you not so stressed, you might’ve laughed at the irony. You had yet to see anyone flip a table before out of anger. Instead, you stood up immediately before the boiling hot tea could spill onto you.

Okay, well you _had_ tried. What was about to happen was going to be entirely his fault now. Wordlessly, you watched as the tyrant threw a tantrum like a child. Destroying everything he could reach and throwing things about. No wonder this entire family needed therapy.

“Akito!” your voice was sharp as though you were scolding a child. Though, in some respects you might as well have been. Like you expected, he ignored you completely throwing a vase directly at you instead. It barely missed you by a hair. That was it. Without giving yourself a second to hesitate you strode over and grabbed him roughly, him kicking and screaming all the while. You tried not to hurt him and luckily for you, his sickly nature made him easier to restrain.

“LET GO OF ME YOU STUPID WHORE!” he shrieked.

“Akito, you’re going to end up hurting me or yourself if I let you continue. I will not let you do that,” you declared, not breaking his intense gaze. You were going to be in so much trouble, but you weren’t about to let him assault you. You took a deep breath and managed to paint your anger into a softer expression.

“I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. Everything is okay,” you reassured him trying to tame the fire dancing in his irises. He still scared you a little bit if you were being honest. His short fuse was like a ticking time bomb about to go off and you had a feeling something like this would happen at some point. You did have a small inkling of sympathy for the man, but his behavior was unacceptable. You held his hands by his side for a moment before you felt something warm trickle onto your hand. Your eyes glanced down only to see _lots_ of blood. You panicked immediately, perhaps the teapot hadn’t missed you after all!? It only took you about three seconds to realize that the blood wasn’t coming from you.

“ _Shit!_ Akito, what the hell!? Why didn’t you say anything?! Oh my god!” you panicked immediately rushing him from the room and towards Hatori’s office.

“HATORI!” you shouted, your voice echoing back at you unpleasantly. Almost instantaneously, Hatori came rushing out from his office, barely avoiding a collision with you. Before he could smack into you he stopped, and you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding in. A transformation right now would have been especially inconvenient.

“What happened?” Hatori asked, taking Akito away from you and ushering you both inside. You hesitated only for a moment before responding.

“It was my fault, I knocked over a cup and Akito managed to accidentally cut himself on the shards,” you lied, looking straight into the ebony depths of Akito’s eyes. He looked positively bewildered and you narrowed your eyes at him. He scoffed at the unspoken challenge. Of course he wasn’t going to tell Hatori what really happened. You were relieved to learn that the wound was not so awful and Akito would not need stitches. The three of you sat in an awkward silence for a while as Hatori patched him up. It became too much for you to bare after a few minutes. You stood and stretched letting out a long yawn before walking out of Hatori’s office without so much as a word. No matter how much you despised this place, you had to admit it was pretty. The warmth of the sunlight against your skin wasn’t as strong as you had expected it to be this time of year. As a maid scurried past you called out to her.

“Excuse me, Miss! Could you please send someone to Akito’s room? I’m afraid we’ve made a bit of a mess,” you asked, and the maid nodded before hurrying off again. You felt a bit guilty shoveling off the mess he’d made because of you onto someone else, but you couldn’t see it appropriate to enter his chambers without him there. You stood outside, enjoying the weather for a while. You weren’t entirely sure why you were waiting. What would you even say? _Gee, I’m sorry you threw a temper-tantrum and hurt yourself like a moron?_ You winced slightly at your tone. That was a little bit mean, even for your standards. Ever since you had met Akito you’d had this sneaking suspicious that something was terribly wrong with him. Even when he was cruel to you, you couldn’t help the over-whelming pity that took over after your rage had subsided. Lost completely in your own thoughts, you jumped out of your skin at Akito’s voice.

“Why are you still here?” he said. It was his usual cold tone, poised and dangerous like a coiled snake. You gulped involuntarily scrambling to find an appropriate response. After all, you weren’t really sure why you had stayed yourself.

“…Would it not have been rude of me to leave?” you said with a grimace. Akito shook his head and frowned at you before heading back in the direction of his room. With another heavy sigh that it seemed only he could frustrate out of you, you trailed after him. It was a wordless and long walk back to his room, but it was well worth it for the look on his face when he opened the door. Complete and utter surprise took over his usual stone cold features. The room was cleaner and neater than it had been when you first walked into it.

“…What? How did you do this?” he questioned turning to glare at you. With a mischievous grin you put a finger to your cheek as if terribly confused.

“Now, whatever could you possibly mean?” you asked with the fakest curious tone you could possibly manage. He let out a scoff at your antics and walked back into his room, but he didn’t shut the door in your face. Instead he left it wide open. You stood, nervously shifting your wait between your feet. Sure, you _could_ walk in, but he might get upset with you for not receiving his permission first. His permission was implied, but you didn’t really feel that comfortable reading him just yet. Akito turned to face you, clear annoyance painted across his features.

“What are you doing? Come in. I’m not finished talking with you,” he ordered. You blinked at him before rolling your eyes and walking inside. You shut the door quietly behind you. Akito didn’t look at you when you spoke, instead he leaned slightly out his window. It was rather hard to hear him, so you stepped closer until you were only a few inches from him.

“You are irritating,” he said first. _He was one to talk_.

“Which is exactly why you decided to continue talking with me,” you replied smarmily. He sneered at you but seemed to cut himself off before he went on another tirade. Standing so close to him, he was much less intimidating. His frame was worryingly thin and small. In fact, he actually stood only a little taller than you which wasn’t saying much at all for his height. After a long silence that wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as it should have been he spoke again.

“What are your motives?” he asked. You held in a laugh at that. Motives? What was this, espionage?

“Merely to keep the Sohmas safe and happy,” you said with a rueful smile. Akito was really the main thing that stood in the way of that currently. Akito didn’t look at you when you responded, he merely hummed in acknowledgement.

“All of the Sohmas?” he asked.

“Yes??” you replied not initially catching what he meant. Did he think you favored one particular Sohma over-oh. _Oh_. Uh-oh. He was referring to himself. Sure, it would be nice if he was safe and happy but if you were being honest he wasn’t exactly on your list of priorities!! Your answer seemed to surprise the both of you. He whipped around to meet your eyes momentarily before turning back to the window.

“Stay here with me.”

“What?”

“Stay here with me at the Sohma estate. Live here for the summer. Don’t go back to the others,” he reiterated. You thought of Tohru and the other Sohmas, you’d worry them sick. You knew Momichi had also been looking forward to building sandcastles with you and Tohru. Plus, Tohru needed your help with cooking and cleaning. You couldn’t just abandon them like that! With a grimace you shook your head before realizing he couldn’t see you. 

“I can’t do that,” you replied softly. God, you really didn’t want to make him angry again.

“Why not?” he snapped. You couldn’t see his face, but he sounded angry. Yeah no, you weren’t about to deal with that for the rest of the summer.

“I already promised the others they could spend the summer with me. Plus, you don’t really like me anyway,” you explained.

“Or is it that you don’t like me? You like the other Sohmas better? I thought you wanted to make all the Sohmas happy,” he accused, his tone challenging. You didn’t know what he was on about, but it felt like he was planning something. Something you might be able to figure out if you spent more time around him.

“You’re right, I don’t exactly like you. But, I also don’t really know you and I hate to say you haven’t made the best first impression. I will not stay the entire summer, but I will stay for one week on _my_ conditions,” you offered. Akito seemed to mule over it for a moment before stating simply,

“No, two weeks.”

With a sigh you conceded and began to lay out your terms and conditions. He certainly wasn’t going to like them, but they were nonnegotiable. After all, part of the reason you were doing this was to protect the other Sohmas.

“Okay, fine. Two weeks it is. But I do have some conditions. First, if you lay your hands on me—which _includes_ throwing things—I am leaving immediately,” you demanded waiting for his response. He didn’t respond so you took it to mean he didn’t have any objections.

“Secondly, you are to have no unsupervised contact with any of the Sohmas staying in the beach house. If you so desperately need to tell them something, I’ll come along,” you declared. He scoffed at that but surprisingly didn’t object to it.

“Finally, I need to go back to the estate tonight to say my goodbyes and collect my things. I will head to the estate in the morning,” you concluded. Akito let out an exasperated groan.

“I could just send someone over there to collect your things! There is no reason for you to—” he started.

“ _Akito_ ,” you warned, your tone low and serious. If he couldn’t even respect these simple conditions you did _not_ want to stay here. With a scowl he turned away from you and once more leaned out the window.

“Fine!” he retorted. A victorious smile spread across your face. Whether the other Sohmas were aware you knew or not, they had been stressing over Akito practically the entire time you’d been there. Now, at the very least they could have a fun stress free time.

“Thank you, Akito. I’ll see you in the morning. Try not to have _another_ meltdown before then,” you teased with a smile. He whipped around to berate you but stopped when he caught your playful expression. With a final scoff, he waved you out of his room and you obliged happily. Somehow you felt as though his scoffing would become an irritatingly familiar sound. You were in for a long two weeks starting tomorrow.


End file.
